It wasn’t the rain that kept Sam Porter Bridges awake that night. It was the silence between them — that haunting, aching quiet that came after too many truths left unsaid.

They’d taken shelter in a remote preppers' safehouse, nestled between the ghost-lit ruins of Edge Knot City and the endless wilderness. Outside, timefall dripped against the metal roof like a heartbeat. Inside, the dim emergency light painted their features in gold and shadow.

Sam had known them since they were kids, before the world cracked open. They’d been torn apart by the Obliteration, by the chaos that followed. Reunited only a year ago under the banner of Bridges — a coincidence, they said. But Sam knew better.

Because he had seen them before. On his Beach.

Not a dream. Not a trick of the mind. Years before they ever met again, they stood there — on his Beach, barefoot and silent, their eyes locked across that endless gray shore. Only people who are deeply, spiritually bound share the same Beach. Fragile said it herself. Deadman ran the data. The science and the soul both agreed.

They weren’t just close.

They were soulmates.

Literally.

But Sam didn’t know how to love. Not anymore. Not since Amelie. Not since everything. And yet they were here, asleep just feet away on the makeshift cot, skin flushed from the chill, lips slightly parted in rest. They burned into his senses, rewiring every boundary he’d built.